


Unfinished

by mandatoryfridge



Category: Silicon Valley (TV)
Genre: Perpetually Unfinished Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-01
Updated: 2018-05-01
Packaged: 2019-04-30 20:45:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14505150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mandatoryfridge/pseuds/mandatoryfridge
Summary: Just some old drafts that will likely never be finished! I'm posting these now because I recently rediscovered them floating around my hard drive and I thought that there might be a single hypothetical person out there who would appreciate reading this... unfinished content.Keep in mind that every single one of these stories was written in 2016, after s3 but before the release of s4.





	1. Soul Mates, But Worse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I thought that those "first words your soul mate says to you" Soulmate AUs would be funny when applied to the Jared/Richard situation. 
> 
> So: a Soulmate AU, kind of.

The first thing Jared notices about the man in his office is that he has a very good posture. Firm, commanding.

The second thing Jared notices about the man in his office is that he is not supposed to be there.

“Um,” says Jared, a little more feebly than he intended. He’s busy filling out paperwork—sheets of paper are spread out in front of him, the small font blurring together into grey blocks of Pointillist shading. “Did… you request an appointment?”

“What would you say,” begins the man, bringing his hands up in a surprisingly effective display of showmanship, “if I told you there was an app that could determine, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the first words your soul mate will say to you?”

Jared blinks, slowly.

“I swear, it works,” the man insists. He has the intense, wide-eyed look of someone who had just spent far too many consecutive hours awake. His Hooli employee badge gleams dully in the eco-friendly fluorescent lighting. “I’ve been developing it for ages—tried it on myself this morning—you just take a picture of your face, or anyone’s face, and you—”

“Sorry,” Jared interrupts. It occurs to him that while the man is standing at Jared’s desk, Jared himself is sitting down, creating a potentially imbalanced workplace environment. Would it be better if he also stood up? Jared’s never really sure about these things. “Did you say that this app would tell you… the first thing your ‘soul mate’ says to you?”

“It really works—you gotta let me sell this to Gavin Belson—”

“He’s not taking appointments right now,” Jared says mildly. He rises from his chair, careful not to disturb the delicate ecosystem of paperwork set out on his desk. “I’m sorry for imposing, but I’m kind of busy right now, and I’d appreciate it if you could come back later?”

The man, unperturbed, holds up his phone. The unmistakable sound of a camera shutter. “It really works,” he repeats, his eyes trained on his phone screen. “I just took your picture. The first words your soul mate will say to you will be… ‘I’m a total fucking retard.’”

“Okay, um,” says Jared, trying his best to usher the Hooli employee out of his office. It’s a brief but awkward ordeal, the man repeatedly trying to show him the words on his phone screen, but as soon as Jared returns to his desk he’s wrapped up in work again, and he more-or-less forgets about it.

*

Maybe a week later Jared has to ref one of Hooli’s dodgeball events, so he wanders into the programmers’ area with a whistle around his neck, looking for the employees selected to take part in, quote, “this game-changing employee bonding exercise, which is also, coincidentally, a game.” Galvin Belson’s words.

The programmers are gathered around a single workstation, apparently enraptured by whatever’s on the computer screen. “What’s going on?” Jared finds himself asking, and he cranes his neck to look at the screen too.

He’s greeted by what looks like a badly-designed music search engine and a Weissman score of 2.89—so ten minutes later, he’s walking with Gavin Belson to the elevators, discussing the potential of a compression engine apparently created by Hooli employee Richard Hendricks.

Gavin stops, turns to him. “Holy shit.”

“Yeah,” says Jared.

*

Jared is in Gavin’s office now, surrounded by ambitiously modern windows and custom-designed furniture. He dials Richard Hendricks’s number (uncovered after a quick search of Hooli’s employee files) and lets the call go to the fancy speakerphone set on Gavin’s desk.

The phone rings, and a quietly exasperated voice answers him on the other line. “Hello, Richard Hendricks, I’m a total fucking retard.”

For a microsecond Jared falters, a feeling of genuine shock bursting somewhere behind his ribcage, as the words of a low-ranked Hooli employee dredge up memories of what he retroactively decided was the third-weirdest encounter he had experienced that workweek. _The first words your soul mate will say to you will be… “I’m a total fucking retard.”_ But he manages to maintain a neutral expression, and his voice quavers only slightly when he says, “Uh, hi, this is Jared Dunn, calling on behalf of Gavin Belson…”


	2. Social Media

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's, like, the beginning of s1, except Jared and Richard are both on Tumblr. I don't know.

Sometimes Richard would scroll through his Facebook news feed, pausing to watch the first muted seconds of a demonstrative recipe video. The Facebook algorithm had been showing him more videos lately, especially those shared by Charlotte from Stanford (graduated, now working some unspecified job on the East Coast, in a relationship, posted a photo album of herself and her friends at a novelty ice cream shop last weekend).

His Facebook news feed—which seemed to grow more deprecating by the day; he didn’t _need_ to see all those dating app ads for lonely people, thank you very much—really only made him feel weird and vaguely uncomfortable. There had been a point in his life where he checked this girl’s Facebook profile like, at least once a day. But not because he was obsessed with her. He was not obsessed with her.

(He wouldn’t even click to her profile while casually browsing—instead he typed her name into the search bar, manually, so that after the first day Facebook had memorized her as one of Richard Hendricks’s “Recent Searches.” But that was just a result of Facebook’s search history function, because Richard was not decidedly not obsessed with her. Not obsessed!)

And things were different now, though if Richard were pressed to elaborate on what those “things” were, he wasn’t sure he could provide a decent explanation without stuttering and excusing himself to the bathroom. He only knew that those days of staring at other people’s social media was behind him. He was done with that phase of his life, in the sense that if a first-year design student printed the word “DONE” in gigantic Arial Black typography, it would not even come close to how, uh, how done Richard was with, you know—focusing on other people’s lives through social media. Fuck Mark Zuckerberg, man. Richard Hendricks had a _life_ , Richard Hendricks had a _career_ , Richard Hendricks had an app to develop and a not-unrelated living situation to secure…

—Richard Hendricks had fallen limply onto his loft bed to look at Tumblr on his phone.

Just for a few minutes, Richard thought.

*

Richard didn’t spend a lot of time on social media, except that he definitely spent a lot of time on social media: checking Facebook; checking Twitter; reading ancient Reddit threads at two in the morning, head buzzing with a combination of Red Bull and insomnia. It just wasn’t something he was willing to admit—besides, he was a millennial, so _everyone_ spent a lot of time on social media.

Tumblr was a hellish site, but recently he had been spending more time on it in a desperate bid to get more traffic for his music app. Two months ago he had created an “official” Tumblr account for Pied Piper—meaning that he had signed up on the website and identified his new blog as “the official Tumblr of Pied Piper” in its description. He remembered struggling to choose an appropriate URL; piedpiper, pied-piper, and, incredibly, pied--piper had already been taken.

The Tumblr account piedpiperapp, the official Tumblr of the proprietary website Pied Piper, became a modest blog detailing Pied Piper’s capabilities in a last-ditch effort to advertise the site. Richard updated it sporadically with new posts whenever he made noticeable changes to the platform. Most of the time the blog kind of just stayed there, existing quietly, accumulating virtual dust.

Pied Piper’s first Tumblr follower was a pornbot. Its second Tumblr follower was also a pornbot.

Then the semi-popular Tumblr blog condorling reblogged Pied Piper’s introductory post with a particularly long set of tags—which remarked, among other things, that the site’s search function had potential—and so Pied Piper’s third Tumblr follower was a random account with a default icon that for some reason just reblogged eighty percent of whatever condorling posted.

Eighty percent was a reasonable estimate. Richard had checked.

*

Tumblr user condorling: earnest, enthusiastic, inarguably weird. The URL, as condorling helpfully explained on their “About” page, was a “portmanteau of condor and gosling: a truly magnificent bird of prey combined with the subset of geese that imprinted on Konrad Lorenz.” Tumblr user condorling, who reblogged photos of ergonomic desk designs and typography of inspirational quotes, who would offhandedly mention in a long-winded response to an ask that the killdeer was their second-favorite plover. (Plovers were, as Richard discovered, a subfamily of wading bird.)

The blog had updated recently. Richard turned onto his side, propping his phone up on the mattress.

**Anonymous** asked: aaaa hi! just wanted to tell you that your bird photos are A++ and also u don’t have to answer but i was just wondering how old are you ??

condorling: Well, physically, I'm in my late 20s, but I don't remember experiencing the ages 10-12, so really I could be younger. :) Glad you enjoy my amateur photography!

The ask response had amassed a handful of notes, including a comment from Tumblr user dippers-internet--history, which read (all lowercase, no punctuation): “u ok bruh”

Richard locked his phone and climbed out of his loft bed. For a moment, he stood motionless inside his room—which was technically Erlich’s room, financially speaking—and he thought about taking out his laptop to work on his app. Maybe he’d figure out a way to run it without making the user download a separate media player.

He kind of wanted an energy drink.

*

Shortly after the small signal boost provided by condorling’s reblog, Richard had taken it upon himself to send condorling a thank-you message. Just as a polite gesture—because, Richard reasoned, Pied Piper’s traffic did increase a little afterwards, a depressing little uptick that made Erlich say in a lofty and self-important voice that he was willing to let Richard stay in the incubator “for now.”

_Talk to a Tumblr_ , prompted the screen in a grey sans serif font. Richard paused, hands hovering over his laptop’s home row. He typed a somewhat anemic message, addressed to condorling—

> piedpiperapp: hey thanks for the signal boost

And that was that.

The response arrived later that day, while Richard sat on the sofa eating takeout for dinner. Gilfoyle and Dinesh were playing first-person shooters against each other, the muted sounds of heavy artillery issuing quietly from opposite screens.

Richard absently checked his phone as he ate. He had Tumblr notifications. For some reason he hadn’t disabled Tumblr notifications when first downloading the app, even though the red “Badge App Icons” sometimes annoyed him.

He checked his messages and found a reply from condorling.

> condorling: It’s not a problem! I’m always willing to help independent creators like yourself any way I can!

And then, in a separate message, timestamped a minute later:

> condorling: :)

*

The next morning, Richard’s phone rang.

This was weird, and a little jarring, because 1) Richard had been reading some Reddit user’s stupid fan theory on Smash Mouth on his phone at the time, so the sudden shift to call mode was surprising, and 2) the call seemed to be coming from a Hooli number. Richard couldn’t imagine why someone at Hooli would want to contact him. He didn’t often get calls from people who weren’t either telemarketers or his mother.

Richard pressed the green icon on his phone screen and said, “Hello?”

A voice he had never heard before issued from his phone’s tiny speaker system. “Hi, this is Jared Dunn from Hooli,” it said, “calling on behalf of Gavin Belson…”

_Oh_ , thought Richard.

And then, a minute later, as Erlich scrambled to find a better shirt: _I have a meeting with Gavin Belson._

And then, hours later, as he sat listlessly on the same couch where he had been eating takeout lo mein last night, as numbers pinwheeled in a nauseating circus inside his head—ten million upfront, two hundred thousand for five percent; as the kind of stuff he had once dreamed about for Pied Piper bulldozed its way into reality, Richard thought: _I am going to puke._

*

Despite himself, Richard had begun thinking of Tumblr user condorling as just Condorling, a name with a capital C. They did not divulge any kind of a name in either their blog description or their “About” page. Not uncommon, but a little disappointing, Richard thought as he found himself wading through Condorling’s late-night reblogs.

(Why was it disappointing? Richard couldn’t really say for sure.)

*

Tumblr messages sent from Richard Hendricks’s phone, at around eleven at night:

> piedpiperapp: Hi uh I know we don’t really know each other but you know my app Pied Piper? You reblogged my introductory post about it like two days ago

> condorling: Yes?

> piedpiperapp: Well some people got ahold of it and there was a little bit of a bidding war and I ended up going with the offer that means that I still own the company so now I guess I’m starting my own company and right now I’m curled up in like a fetal position lying down inside a bathtub

> piedpiperapp: Wait

> piedpiperapp: Fuck

> piedpiperapp: I did not mean to send a wall of text sorry I think my judgment is impaired even though I haven’t been drinking or anything haha Jesus Christ

> condorling: Oh… Well, I’m happy for the direction your app has taken, but are you okay?

> condorling: I genuinely think you should do something to help yourself calm down; you seem panicked. Perhaps deep breathing, or a simple, comforting activity? Sometimes I like to hum songs to myself when I’m feeling stressed. I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful.

 


	3. Bodyswap

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The story behind this is that I asked my friend for a "terrible AU idea" and she responded with "bodyswap AU, but they have to kiss to switch back." 
> 
> Tragically, they never get to kiss in this one, because I never finished writing it.
> 
> (This story is especially dumb because we all know now that Richard has heard Jared curse before. I was but a pre-s4 fool...)

“I read about something like this once,” Jared muses. “For a philosophy class at Vassar.”

It is a little unbearable to look at Jared, so Richard finds himself staring at the dingy tile of Erlich’s bathroom floor. “ _Freaky Friday_ ,” he says, hollowly, wincing a little as Jared’s voice comes out of his mouth. “I never actually saw that movie.”

Jared, or Jared-Richard, or—okay, just _Jared_ —turns to face him. “So, a whole-body transplant,” Jared says, gesturing placidly with his hands in a way Richard never did. For a moment, he looks as if he’s about to start a PowerPoint presentation: his shoulders squared, his tone clipped and businesslike. Bizarrely unfazed. “There’s probably a way to fix this.”

“Jared. Jared,” Richard says, a little frantic. “You are—you are controlling my body. Me, Richard. And _I’m_ controlling your body.”

“Richard, stay calm—”

“I am calm. I am completely, just totally fucking calm right now.” Richard pauses, then exhales in a way that could pass as laughter. He looks down at his hands—or, if he wanted to be precise about it, Jared’s body’s hands—and says, very quietly, “It’s a little weird to, um, to curse in your voice. I don’t think I’ve ever heard you. Do that.”

“Yes,” Jared agrees.

Richard—or Richard-Jared, or Richard-in-Jared’s-body, but mostly just Richard—Richard perches on the edge of the bathtub, his dress shirt creasing to follow the slump in his shoulders. The familiar surroundings of Erlich’s bathroom seem slightly off, and Richard realizes that this is because Jared’s body is several inches taller than his own; somehow he is reminded of what it was like hitting a growth spurt as a teenager, that palpable awkwardness that followed him everywhere he went.

The first time he saw Jared-in-Richard’s-body, earlier that morning, he had been confused and vaguely nauseated by the surrealism. Jared, but this time with Richard’s hair and Richard’s eyes and Richard’s faded red hoodie—but still undeniably Jared, because of the way he holds himself, the way he looks at Richard (even Richard-as-Jared) with an intense, self-sacrificing concentration.

“Let’s—let’s move to my room,” says Richard.

*

They move to Richard’s room. Richard silently thanks whatever’s out there for today’s more-or-less empty itinerary. He is not sure, all things considered, if he could handle going to work as Jared.


	4. Housemates

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AU in which, after the events of s3, Pied Piper becomes a runaway success and Richard has enough money to buy a nice house. 
> 
> Cohabitation.

“I was just thinking,” says Richard, biting at his bottom lip, his shirt unevenly buttoned, “Jared. You could, um. You could stay at my place, if you wanted?”

He lowers his head a little, his eyes flickering to the floor; it occurs to Richard that he has spent more time during this conversation with Jared studying the carpet rather than making eye contact. His offer is punctuated by a dense moment of relative silence, during which Jared inhales once, rather loudly, but makes no other noise.

“Richard,” Jared finally says, “I’d hate to impose.”

Richard looks at Jared’s face, then, and he is reminded of Jared’s strange emotional outburst in Erlich’s living room after being given the board position, hands balled up into fists and covering his eyes. He remembers Jared’s voice, reedy and strained. Gilfoyle asking, “You sure you still want him on the board?” It feels like something that happened a lifetime ago. Richard is certain it could not have been more than two years.

“You wouldn't be imposing, actually,” Richard says. He unconsciously bites his lip. “Because—I just bought this new house, and it's kind of weird living by myself.”

“It's certainly a nice place. Solid architecture,” Jared comments unhelpfully.

“You can—you should take the guest bedroom.”

He helps Jared move, carrying boxes of Jared’s belongings and bringing them inside. The house is new and reasonably large, something Richard has purchased with his steadily increasing salary. He remembers standing in the kitchen for the first time, a few months ago, a cheerful real estate agent showing him the countertops. He is a CEO, Richard reminds himself—the CEO of a successful company, and he deserves a really nice house, even if he still sometimes finds himself curled up in a fetal position inside the bathtub.

Besides, he finds, there is a certain swell of achievement in telling his parents that he has his own home.

*

Jared settles in quickly. They become surprisingly functional roommates. Jared cooks and cleans and makes his own fabric softener, combining vinegar and baking soda in a large, cheap bowl. In the evenings they leave the Pied Piper offices together and drive

On a Wednesday Richard finds Jared in the guest bedroom, hanging work shirts in the closet.

“I got you some tea,” Richard says, looking down at the floor. He holds out a really nice box of tea at arm’s length. Something about the gesture reminds Richard of an old cartoon, as if he is offering Jared flowers for the Valentine’s Day special, an exaggerated blush coloring his face.

*

“You speak German while you’re sleeping,” Richard says. He is standing near a kitchen cabinet, hand resting lightly on the protruding edge of the utensils drawer. Jared has been preparing dinner. A pale green pot sits on the stove; a couple of tomatoes, freshly washed, have been placed on the cutting board.

“I don’t speak German.” Jared answers almost flippantly, the same voice he uses when he recites a piece of trivia. He opens the fridge, checks one of the shelves on the inside of the door. “Richard, were you the one who bought this cilantro? You know you’re not supposed to have—”

“You definitely speak German in your sleep,” Richard interrupts. “I’ve heard you. I tried telling you before, but you just said that you didn’t know how to speak German. But you talk in your sleep. And it’s definitely German.”

Jared closes the fridge, turns to Richard with a curious look on his face. “Are you sure?”

“Yes! It's kind of—well, it's kind of…”

“Off-putting?” Jared supplies. He stares at a section of the floor, bringing his left hand up to his neck. He touches his collar between his thumb and forefinger, gently, an understated nervous tic. “What you're saying is possible. I don't… I don’t remember a significant part of my early adolescence. I might have forgotten it.” He closes his eyes, shaking his head slightly, making a wan attempt to smile. “Close the window, Jared!” he murmurs, the words directed towards himself, sounding faintly amused, as if recalling an incident from a long time ago.

“Jared—”

“I'm sorry if any of my sleeping behaviors bother you. When I was younger I used to stuff the space beneath the door with newspaper every night—it was surprisingly effective at muffling noise, maybe I could try—”

“No, it's okay, Jared, just…” Richard bites the inside of his mouth, his lips forming a thin line. He notices, suddenly, that a tuft of hair has fallen across Jared’s forehead, forming a loose curlicue—it reminds Richard of old Superman comics. Richard’s next words make him sound, embarrassingly, like a concerned therapist. “Do you seriously not remember your childhood?”

Jared takes a step towards the counter and looks blankly at the tomatoes. “Some parts I might have blocked out,” he admits, soft and apologetic. “Do you want me to put cilantro in the pasta sauce?”

“Um, yeah, just a little. Thanks. And I'm sorry, about—about what happened to you?” He tugs at a section of his hair and blinks a few times, very quickly, looking intermittently from Jared to the kitchen floor and back again. “You know, you can always talk about it with me, if you want? I'm—not good with this stuff, but I can. Try.”

It's perhaps one of the dumbest things Richard has ever said, or at least it feels that way, but Jared thanks him nevertheless.

They end up eating dinner together at the kitchen table, talking mostly about nothing. Jared mentions a documentary on Rachel Carson he saw just last week; Richard says, with more vigor than he initially intended, that Comic Sans MS is a shitty font. Their conversations often end up like this, Richard thinks, when they're not talking about work: weird and haphazard and peppered with random factoids. Beside him, Jared suggests the idea of adding serifs to Comic Sans, earnestly, as if he's workshopping something—“Maybe if you rounded out the serifs, to keep the font’s playful theme… would that improve it?”

“Fuck no,” Richard says. He stabs a piece of gluten-free pasta with his fork. Later he will curl up on the armchair in the living room, complaining of nausea, regretting the cilantro he decided to have at dinner. Jared will offer him a glass of ginger ale. Richard, thankfully, will not throw up.

 


End file.
